Tom Holland returns for a third outing as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in what is arguably the best of the Marvel movies. A film that delivers emotional payoffs and character arcs from not only the previous films in this iteration of Spidey, but the two other big-budget live-action. series helmed by Sony before this. Picking up right…
Tag: performances
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) – Kevin Altieri, Boyd Kirkland, and Frank Paur
Kevin Conroy brought his incarnation of the Dark Knight to the big screen in the 1993 animated film, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. Released between the first and second seasons of Batman: The Animated Series, the film was originally planned to be a direct-to-video release before being repurposed for a theatrical release. The film combines…
Disquiet (2023) – Michael Winnick
There are some fun and familiar ideas at work in Michael Winnick’s Disquiet which is getting a limited theatrical run, and VOD release tomorrow, but it just isn’t as strong as it could be. At just under an hour and a half I still felt the editing could have been tighter, and the characters could…
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) – Dan Kwan, and Daniel Scheinert
An epic and hilarious story with an intimate tale of family and love at its heart. I couldn’t believe how much I enjoyed Everything Everywhere All at Once. I knew I would, but I was completely swept up in the tale, it’s toying with the multi-verse, and letting Michelle Yeoh show off all of her…
Nightmare Alley (2021) – Guillermo del Toro
Based on the novel of the same name del Toro’s latest is a lush, shining example of the noir genre, and features strong performances and visuals. I loved how faithful it was to the spirit of the novel, there were a few necessary changes, but none that change any of the overall arcs for any…
Moon (2009) – Duncan Jones
It’s been a while since I last watched Moon. In fact, I may not have watched it since it first came out. I remember delighting in it, and simply loving Sam Rockwell’s performance. So I was quite happy to settle in for it again, this time knowing how everything would play out, and pick up…
Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) – Howard Deutch
While arguably a riff on his own Pretty In Pink, John Hughes delivers another fantastic teen dramedy, overseen by director Howard Deutch that plays role reversal with its Molly Ringwald alter-ego film. This time the main character is Keith Nelson (Eric Stoltz), a high schooler who wants to be an artist, but his family’s blue…
The Puppet Masters (1994) – Stuart Orme
Somewhere in The Puppet Masters, despite its continuity errors, its plot holes and poor performance by its lead actor (who is surrounded by some fantastic character actors and recognizable faces) is probably a decent film, I mean it’s based on Heinlein’s novel, so it had a great starting point. When something comes down in the…
TIFF 2021: Encounter dir. Michael Pearce
From the beginning of the film, thanks to the way the film is told, and the willing suspension of disbelief that is inherent with cinema, we believe Malik (Riz Ahmed) and his conviction that a microscopic parasitic alien organism has come to the planet and is slowly taking over, manipulating people to their own end….
TIFF 2021: Dear Evan Hansen dir. Stephen Chbosky
Mental health. Suicide. Depression. Loss. Grief. Loneliness. These issues are usually trapped in the individual, and though a number of us share in these things, it’s never a shared experience. We are held in the prison of our issues, in a society where social media presentation, the illusion of life being better than it is…
The Mind Reels 